RWJF - President’s Message

Grantmakers face an almost irresistible temptation to strike out beyond the boundaries of current grantmaking priorities and explore new territory. It is, in part, a natural reaction to the frustration of working with intractable, chronic issues. In part, it reflects the allure of the new. And, in part, it comes from the understandable impulse of program officers to carve out their own special niches. Yet most experts, and I agree with them, advise having a well-defined focus, to avoid being spread too thin—a rifle, not a shotgun, our first president, David Rogers, used to say.
One way we stay focused is to think specifically about what we won't fund—Robert Frost’s “roads not taken.” The Foundation’s general guidelines include some types of grants we do not make: funding ongoing general operating expenses, basic biomedical research, international programs. Many topics, though important, fall outside the work of our program teams: women’s health and occupational health, for example. When staff members are developing specific programs and strategies, we again discuss the kinds of projects that would not be funded under a particular initiative, which helps clarify the logic that our staff have employed in their planning.
The problems most foundations are trying to alleviate are so large that progress will seldom be possible without concentrated efforts. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s focus is probably narrower than that of most other large philanthropies, because of the specificity of our mission. Nevertheless, our staff regularly debate whether we have become too diffuse, with our four program goals and 10 program teams. I believe such discussions are essential—here and elsewhere—if grantmakers are to resist the relentless centrifugal forces to which they are subject.